Breaking Kayfabe

Upper Class; 2005

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Ask most United Statesians what they know about Canadian hip-hop, and they'll answer with a wistful remembrance of Tom Green. Occasionally, some wiseacre will blather about his collection of Kardinal Offishal mp3s or, god forbid, his love and respect for Swollen Members, and you wish you'd never said anything in the first place. As deeply as we love Canadian indie boys and girls, rappers trying to cross the border still find it surprisingly difficult. We like our rap stars either angry, self-educated, and packing or benignly solipsistic and fashionable; the politely unarmed of Canada don't offer much beyond, for all intents and purposes, the edited version of American commercial hip-hop, and nobody wants that. This was enough to make Rollie Pemberton neglect his blog long enough to issue a grimy clarion call to Edmonton and beyond as Cadence Weapon.

It makes sense that Rollie's first proper album would be a rousing alarm. His father, Teddy Pemberton, having emigrated from Brooklyn to Edmonton, almost single-handedly introduced hip-hop to the province in 1980 through his college radio show "The Black Experience in Sound". In a 2000 interview with See Magazine-- which, like Pitchfork, later employed Rollie as music journo-- Teddy Pemberton remarked of his arrival in Edmonton, "I would see the kids walking around, and they didn't even have a clue. I decided right then and there: 'I've got to change this.'" Breaking Kayfabe is infused with the same sense of obligation, an idealist's thrust against perceived indifference. Call it Rollie's Künstlerroman, his struggle against the insouciance of a scene that his father helped birth. Sounds heavy, but Rollie pushes forward with a slap on the back, like the friend who gives you a new shirt "Not because yours looks bad." It does. Your shirt looks horrible.

Breaking Kayfabe revels in clashing the two worlds of hip-hop together, the self-awareness of Rollie's underground-leaning lyrics spilling over gargantuan synth riffs and decidedly non-boom bappy beats. Imagine a less-irritating Slug if produced by a Three 6 Mafia inspired by Sparks instead of cough syrup, and you're somewhere near Cadence Weapon's aesthetic. Rollie's electro clatters and clangs, but not at the cost of rhythm, as many of the underground's boundary testers would have you believe is necessary. Anti-Pop Consortium hinted at this kind of accessible experimentation, but then ate themselves. Cadence Weapon sees the idea through on songs like "Vicariously", a tumbler of bleeps and drones borrowed from Nintendo backed by a grinding, metallic break. "Julie Will Jump The Broom" does Books-like, but struts where they stumble. "Diamond Cutter" talks noir and treats a Rick Rubin-esque break with caustic techno-disrespect.

Throughout, Rollie makes choices that surprise: flipping a sample from video game Silent Hill into a Wild West shootout with the Canadian rap establishment; subtle references to his father's passing; admitting his contradictions and not expecting credit for doing so (ahem, Kanye). These are things most rappers don't like to bother themselves with, and much of that can probably be attributed to Rollie's background. Raised in a library of music and having already dissected his influences, Rollie takes confident first steps as Cadence Weapon. Breaking Kayfabe may not be his masterpiece, but it hints that he may be capable of one, and now you can finally get his music without having to write a check to his landlord.